GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Explosions, air strikes and gunfire rattled northern Gaza on Saturday, the third day of an Israeli military operation that has uprooted tens of thousands of Palestinians and compounded what the UN called “unbearable” living conditions in the territory.
An AFP correspondent reported ongoing explosions from the Shujaiya area near Gaza City, with a resident saying bodies were visible on the streets.
Israel’s military on Saturday said its operations were continuing in Shujaiya where fighting “above and below the ground” left a “large number” of militants dead.
A resurgence of fighting in the area comes months after Israel had declared the command structure of Hamas militants dismantled in northern Gaza.
Last Sunday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the “intense phase” of the war was winding down after almost nine months, but experts see a potentially prolonged next phase.
The Gaza war has also led to soaring tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, leading Iran on Saturday to warn of an “obliterating” war if Israel attacked Lebanon.
The war started with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza although the army says 42 are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,834 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. It reported at least 69 deaths over the previous 48 hours.
Mohammed Harara, 30, said he and his family, young and old, felt as though they would become part of that toll.
He said they fled from their home in Shujaiya with nothing, “due to the bombardment by Israeli planes, tanks and drones” that they barely survived.
“We couldn’t carry anything from the house. We left the food, flour, canned goods, mattresses, and blankets,” Harara said.
Israel’s military on Friday said it was conducting “targeted raids” backed by air strikes against Hamas militants in the Shujaiya area.
The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA estimated that “about 60,000 to 80,000 people were displaced” from the area this week.
AFPTV images on Saturday showed men moving belongings on a donkey cart. Some people were pushed in wheelchairs. Children walked with backpacks past piles of dusty debris.
“I saw a tank in front of the Shuhada mosque firing” at targets, said Abdelkareem Al-Mamluk. “There were martyrs in the street.”
On Friday Hamas and the armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad both said they were fighting in Shujaiya.
Elsewhere in the coastal territory, the civil defense agency on Saturday said four bodies were pulled from an apartment after an Israeli strike in the central region.
Further south, in the Rafah area, witnesses reported dead and wounded after a new incursion by Israeli troops.
Tarek Qandeel, director of the medical center in Al-Maghazi, central Gaza, said the facility was seriously damaged in the bombing of a neighboring house, making it the latest Gaza medical facility affected by the war.
The United Nations, in a report on Friday that cited Gaza’s health ministry, said “about 70 percent of health infrastructure has been destroyed.”
Separately, a UN spokeswoman, Louise Wateridge, said by video-link that she had just returned to central Gaza after four weeks outside the territory.
“It’s really unbearable,” she said, describing a “significantly deteriorated” situation.
“There’s no water there, there’s no sanitation, there’s no food,” and people are returning to live in “empty shells” of buildings.
In the absence of bathrooms they are “relieving themselves anywhere they can,” Wateridge said.
The UN says most of Gaza’s population is displaced, but fallout from the war has also uprooted people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border, where Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and Israeli forces have engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire.
Such exchanges have escalated this month, alongside bellicose rhetoric from both sides.
Israel’s military said plans for a Lebanon offensive had been “approved and validated,” prompting Hezbollah to respond that none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict.
In a post Saturday on social media, Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York said it “deems as psychological warfare” Israeli threats to “attack” Lebanon.
But it added such a move would lead to an “obliterating” war that could involve “all resistance fronts,” a reference to Iran-backed groups in the region.
Among those are Yemen’s Houthi militants, who have for months been targeting international shipping in the Red Sea area. The Houthis say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians.
On Friday the Houthis claimed a “direct hit” on a tanker in the Red Sea but a maritime security agency run by Britain’s Royal Navy reported no damage.
The US Navy has retaliated against Houthi targets for such attacks, and on Friday the US military said its forces had destroyed seven drones and a control station vehicle in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen over the previous day.
Fighting for third day in north Gaza as thousands displaced
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Fighting for third day in north Gaza as thousands displaced
- Israel’s military on Saturday said its operations were continuing in Shujaiya where fighting “above and below the ground” left a “large number” of militants dead
- A resurgence of fighting in the area comes months after Israel had declared the command structure of Hamas militants dismantled in northern Gaza
Lebanese PM to visit Syria, discuss disappearance of prisoners
- Nawaf Salam lays wreath at Martyrs’ Monument in Beirut to commemorate 50th anniversary of Lebanese Civil War
LONDON: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is scheduled to visit the Syrian Arab Republic on Monday to discuss common interests with the new leadership in Damascus.
It will be Salam’s first visit to Syria since he formed a government in February, and he is scheduled to discuss the issue of Lebanese citizens who disappeared in Syrian prisons during the Bashar Assad regime that collapsed in December. It has been reported that 622 Lebanese nationals remain forcibly disappeared in Syrian prisons.
“I hope to return with good news about those missing in Syria, and I will update the Lebanese people on this issue tomorrow,” Salam said, according to the National News Agency.
Salam laid a wreath at the Martyrs’ Monument in Beirut on Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of April 13, the date when Lebanon’s Civil War began in 1975.
Salam wrote on X: “We pause not to reopen wounds, but to recall lessons that must never be forgotten. All victories were false, and all parties (from the war) emerged as losers.”
He added: “There can be no true state unless legitimate armed forces have the exclusive right to bear arms.”
Aid worker missing after deadly attack on colleagues is held by Israel, ICRC says
- PRCS demanded the immediate release of Nsasrah, who it said was “forcibly abducted” while carrying out humanitarian duties
CAIRO: A Palestinian Red Crescent staff member who went missing in late March when 15 humanitarian workers were killed by Israeli fire is being detained by Israeli authorities, the rescue service and the Red Cross said on Sunday.
Hisham Mhana, the spokesperson for the ICRC in Gaza, confirmed to Reuters that it had received information that the Palestine Red Crescent Society paramedic Assad Al-Nsasrah was being held in an Israeli place of detention.
“As per standard practice, we informed the families immediately. In this case, we also informed the Palestine Red Crescent Society as they have special standing as a partner of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement,” he said.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment.
Mhana said the ICRC has not been granted access to Nsasrah, who until Sunday had been declared missing, and also has not been able to visit any of the Palestinian detainees and prisoners in Israeli jails since October 7, 2023.
In a post on X, The PRCS demanded the immediate release of Nsasrah, who it said was “forcibly abducted” while carrying out humanitarian duties.
It added that Nsasrah and his colleagues came under heavy gunfire, which led to the killing of eight of them in a “grave violation” of international humanitarian law.
The bodies of 15 emergency and aid workers from the Red Crescent, the Civil Emergency Service and the UN were found buried in a mass grave in southern Gaza in March.
The UN and the Red Crescent accused Israeli forces of killing them after they were dispatched to respond to reports of injuries from Israeli airstrikes.
The Israeli military referred Reuters to its statement from Monday, in which it said that a thorough inquiry into the incident was still underway and that it would provide further details only once the investigation is complete.
It said that a preliminary inquiry indicated that “the troops opened fire due to a perceived threat following a previous encounter in the area, and that six of the individuals killed in the incident were identified as Hamas terrorists.”
The Israeli military has provided no evidence of how it determined that the six were Hamas militants, and the Islamist faction has rejected the accusation.
The only known survivor of the incident, PRCS paramedic Munther Abed, said soldiers had opened fire on clearly marked emergency response vehicles.
Moroccans demonstrate in support of Palestinians
- Demonstrators marched through the streets of Rabat under pouring rain in response to a call from the National Action Group for Palestine
RABAT: Several thousand people demonstrated in Morocco’s capital on Sunday to show support for Palestinians in war-torn Gaza.
Under pouring rain, demonstrators marched through the streets of Rabat in response to a call from the National Action Group for Palestine, a coalition of several political organizations, including the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD).
“The Moroccans are with Gaza,” said the principal of a private school in Rabat who spoke to AFP.
The North African kingdom has officially called for “the immediate, complete and permanent halt to the Israeli war on Gaza,” but has not publicly discussed reversing the official establishment of ties with Israel in 2020 as part of the US-led Abraham Accords.
The latest protest followed another large rally held a week earlier, part of a spate of demonstrations across the country since the Israeli army resumed its offensive on March 18 against the Islamist group Hamas after a two-month truce in Gaza.
Israel denies entry to Jerusalem for Palestinian Christians marking Palm Sunday
- Israeli restrictions at checkpoints around Jerusalem require Palestinians to obtain security permits to access religious sites
- Only 6,000 permits were issued this year to the West Bank’s 50,000 Christians
LONDON: Israeli authorities prevented Palestinian Christian worshippers from entering Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank to participate in Palm Sunday.
Israeli authorities imposed strict restrictions on Jerusalem over the weekend, limiting the access of Palestinian Christians to the city, the Wafa news agency reported.
Only a limited number of worshippers, primarily residents of Jerusalem and Palestinian citizens of Israel, were able to attend religious services at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Wafa added.
Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week leading up to Easter. It commemorates the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem and is observed by Eastern and Western Christian churches.
On Sunday, Patriarch Theophilos III of the Greek Orthodox Church and Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa led liturgies attended by the clergy and a small group of worshipers.
Israeli restrictions at checkpoints around Jerusalem require Palestinians — Muslim and Christian — to obtain permits to access religious sites, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Father Ibrahim Faltas, Vicar of the Custody of the Holy Land, noted that only 6,000 permits were issued this year to the West Bank’s 50,000 Christians. Permit issuance requires a security clearance and often asks that applicants download a mobile application managed by Israeli authorities.
“This is the second consecutive year that only a small number of pilgrims are able to participate in Holy Week and Easter celebrations in Jerusalem due to the ongoing conflict (in Gaza),” Faltas told Wafa.
“Churches would continue to pray for peace, justice, and freedom for all people in the Holy Land,” he added.
The Catholic Palm Sunday procession took place on Sunday afternoon, starting from Jerusalem's Church of Bethphage and ending at the Church of Saint Anne.
Christians gathered for services at the Holy Family Catholic Church and Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing Israeli attacks since late 2023. In the West Bank, Palm Sunday services were held in churches throughout Bethlehem, Jericho, Ramallah, Nablus, and Jenin.
Syrian President Sharaa heads to UAE on official visit - SANA
CAIRO: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa will travel to the United Arab Emirates for his second visit to a Gulf state as president on Sunday, Syria's official news agency reported.
He will be accompanied by foreign minister Assad al-Shibani, who visited the UAE earlier this year.
They are expected to discuss issues of mutual interest, the SANA state news agency reported.
Sharaa visited Saudi Arabia in February on his first foreign trip since assuming the presidency in January.
His visit to the UAE comes as the new Syrian leadership attempts to strengthen ties with Arab and Western leaders following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December at the hands of Sharaa's Sunni Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
(With Reuters)
